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In Case You Missed It:

By the way, doctor: Can I stop getting colonoscopies?

Q. At age 60 I was treated for colon
cancer. Since then I've had regular colonoscopies with no further
sign of colon cancer. I'm now 84 and healthy. Does it make sense
to get another colonoscopy?

A. It's a good question. Discontinuing
surveillance colonoscopies in people with a history of colon
cancer has never, to the best of my knowledge, been
systematically addressed. What would be important to know in
making any recommendation would be the precise results of the
intervening exams. Since you had cancer, you've probably had five
to six colonoscopies. The value of such colonoscopies is the
detection and removal of polyps that might eventually lead to
cancer. Does "no further sign of colon cancer" mean no polyps in
any of those tests? If it does, then I'd probably advise you as I
would an octogenarian who hadn't had colon cancer.

Several years ago, researchers from a hospital in Seattle
reported data on about 1,200 asymptomatic people who had
colonoscopies at their facility. With increasing age, the
probability of finding a precancerous polyp went up, and that was
especially true for the most worrisome kinds — polyps that are
large or have a feathery ("villous") appearance. But the
researchers also found that the benefit of the colonoscopies, as
measured by the extension of life expectancy, got smaller in
older age groups. For people ages 50 to 54, screening colonoscopy
added, on average, about 10 months of life. For people ages 75 to
79, the screening added two months, and for those 80 and older,
the gain was about a month and a half.